if I complied. He ran off among the cars, back the way we’d come.
I clung to the door handle for a second, hesitating. What the hell was going on?
Another voice sent slivers of ice threading through my veins, goading me into a run. “It’s silver! They shot him with silver!”
I hadn’t heard a gunshot, but it was enough to frighten me into action. Chaz had once been shot with silver. He had survived it, but a wound inflicted with the pure metal guaranteed it would heal close to human-slow if it wasn’t removed immediately. Certainly it would scar. Who had been hurt, I wondered. Though, honestly, my worry was more about where the Were had been injured. If the damage was to something vital, he could bleed out or worse. I didn’t like thinking that way, and until I saw it I was going to do my best not to think the worst. I’d pulled bullets out of Chaz; I could do it for someone else if I needed to.
A bunch of guys were going Were, luminescence glimmering in their eyes and fangs peeking out between their lips as they snarled in fury. About a dozen of them trotted off toward the tree line, I assumed to search for the culprit. To attack now, when the pack was together at the peak of their strength, took a depth of bravery or stupidity like nothing I’d ever seen. Whoever it was must be suicidal.
Mr. and Mrs. Cassidy were hovering where I’d seen Chaz and his buddies sitting earlier. There were too many crowding around to see who’d been hurt. As soon as Nick spotted me trying to see what was going on, he shoved a few people out of the way and took my arm, yanking me closer.
I gave a high-pitched yelp at the rough treatment, giving him a mixed sheepish and rebellious look as he growled at me. “Get down! Whoever it is hasn’t been caught yet; they might make a go for you, too. Why didn’t you go inside?”
“I thought I could help whoever was hurt,” I said, pulling out of his grip. Disgruntled at being dragged around and then hovered over by the concerned Weres, I gave him a belligerent poke in the shoulder. “I’m not a child. Don’t treat me like one. Who’s hurt?”
Looking as mad as I felt, he pointed at the slumped figure on the ground, and I immediately understood why they were all so concerned.
Chaz lay still on the ground, breath hissing out between his teeth and eyes scrunched shut as he clutched at his shoulder. An arrow shaft protruded from between his fingers, and the skin visible between the blood and tears in his shirt was raw and red from silver-reaction. The arrow hadn’t hit anything vital, but the silver could spread like infection through his bloodstream if it stayed there too long. As the blood drained from my face, I elbowed past the others clustered close to him to touch his cheek, a thread of fear twisting my gut as he opened pain-glazed eyes to look at me.
Damn it all to hell, whoever was doing this was really going to pay.
Chapter 14
“Go inside, love; we’ll take care of this,” Chaz grated out, forcing the words. Someone had broken off the fletched end of the arrow, but the point was still deeply embedded in the muscle of his shoulder, and no one seemed to know what to do. It was obviously hurting him badly, because he was having a tough time speaking around the pain.
Someone had once told me that the touch of silver to a werewolf was like putting your hand against a frying pan with the flame turned up full. The longer you kept it there, the deeper the wound and the more flesh it burned. Keeping it against your skin would almost guarantee permanent damage. By itself, it wasn’t a life-threatening wound, but if the arrow had come closer to his heart or some other vital organ, it could’ve been. The longer that little arrowhead stayed in there, the higher the chances the muscles around the wound would be too injured to heal properly, meaning he’d lose mobility in that shoulder or arm. A lesser Were might have bled out or had the silver taint their blood too much to recover, but as long as this was handled quickly, Chaz would be okay. He’d have nothing more than a scar to show for it.